The speed increase from RDS V5 to 5.5 was a vast impronement and was worth the $99 upgrade in itself. I agree that MC "pushed" Carrara out just to capture some $$$ (and Infini-D also). However, that's not the fault of Eovia but they do reap the ill-will of former users. That's why they bundle Amapi & many plug-ins along with the debute version for a fair price (at least IMHO).